Pages

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Over the last week, I've been getting ready for spring and taking a few photos here and there. I've been also hard at work testing new equipment and partaking in the usual vehicle maintenance that's to be done before spring begins. Right now, I still plan to head out and chase in April occasionally dependent on the weather pattern of course, but I'll be scheduling a vacation sometime in May/June yet again. Hopefully, this year will be far more active than 2012 ended up being. I missed the big tornado day last year in April as I had to work and really regretted not being out there that day. One of the many things I have on my mind for this upcoming spring is how the on-going drought will have an effect on severe weather across the Great Plains. I'm sure it will have some impact to a certain degree, but over the last few weeks there has been some improvement in terms of rainfall and snowfall across the Great Plains. There's still a long way to go though seen here. Locally, we have just about erased our drought from this past summer across most of Illinois. It could be an interesting spring in the Midwest with maybe even some flooding concerns if we continue this rather wet weather pattern. Time will tell on that. Anyhow, I've added a few photos I shot over the last week of the disappearing snow across the local area below:

That's all for now. Spring is on the horizon and it's just a matter of time before we see our first 70°F day and severe convection. Heck, I even saw a Robin this past weekend so that should tell you that spring is right around the corner regardless of the what the long-term weather models may say.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Amazing winter scenes to be found after last week's winter storm outside Peoria, IL

Last week, we ended up with a fairly nice snowfall as a winter storm took aim on west-central Illinois and the Midwest. It was our biggest snowfall thus far across the area resulting in a healthy swath of accumulating snow seen here. Locally, we ended up around 6" inches of heavy wet snow at my apartment just northwest of Peoria, IL seen here with even higher totals off to the northwest. After the snowfall I headed out to Charter Oak Park in Peoria, IL and Jubilee College State Park west of Peoria, IL near Brimfield, IL on U.S. 150 to hopefully capture some winter scenes thanks to the heavy wet snow. I was quite happy seeing pretty much every tree "caked" in snow. This winter storm definitely left me quite pleased with this particular afternoon of photography. Since snowfall-to-liquid ratios were on the order of (8:1) (8" inches of snow per 1" inch of rain) it led to snow accumulating prolifically to trees etc. This was the kind of snow great for packing and making snowballs/snowmen. It's also referred to as "heart attack" snow since the snow is heavier due to the high moisture-content within the snow which can send you to the hospital if one isn't careful. Anyhow, I've added a rather large collection of photos from the winter storm below:

That will pretty much wrap this post up. It ended up being a fun day to snap some winter photos for myself. It felt good to get more than a couple inches of snow in west-central Illinois and here in Peoria, IL. Now, I say lets get to spring and some storm chasing. Who's ready for spring? I'm ready...are you?!